


Kiss of peace

by larvae



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Drinking, Drinking & Talking, Drunken Kissing, Episode: s01e03 Hard Times, Everything's above the belt, Face Tattoo, Gentle Kissing, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Kissing, M/M, Mild Painplay, No Sex, No genital touching / mention, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Romantic Fluff, Romantic Friendship, Romantic Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2020-06-09 20:27:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19483396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/larvae/pseuds/larvae
Summary: Aziraphale kisses the mark on Crowley's face throughout the centuries.Inspired by: https://twitter.com/roman_kvn/status/1145470445870669825





	Kiss of peace

Aziraphale had first taken note of the mark on Crawley’s face as they stood on the Eastern wall of the recently vacated Garden of Eden. He had noticed it just as he had ripped his eyes away from the children of G-d — naked and alone in the wastes — to raise his wing over the Serpent and shield him from the rain. That had been the polite thing to do. But staring, of course, had not been. Not even then, when the world was new and there had only ever been two sets of eyes put upon it that knew (as of very, _very_ recently) about things like social conduct, rudeness, and keeping up appearances in polite society. So he averted his eyes immediately. Certainly before he could meet Crawley’s. Certainly before he could study his face.

He had noted that it was a handsome face. Sharp and impish with shining golden eyes and a beaky nose for him to look down. He couldn’t quite tell what the mark by the demon’s right ear was, exactly. It was obscured by his flaming red curls.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚ *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

The angel Aziraphale next saw the mark on the demon Crawley’s face some centuries after their first meeting, when he had come to find him as the Great Ark was being built.

It was a snake, its black coils stark against the greyish cast of his pale skin. This time, he could stare all he liked, as the demon Crawley was busy watching G-d’s creatures being loaded two by two into the Ark to be spared from the rising waters of the Great Flood that would raze the world to ruin.

Aziraphale would remember that day well for the remainder of his time on Earth. He remembered all his days living among G-d’s creatures, but this one stood out to him in particular. He remembered marveling at the gathered creatures, standing peaceably in their rows (except for the dragons and the unicorns, which had broken free of their handlers and sealed their fates). He remembered Noah and his sons, his wife and his sons’ wives. He remembered the gathering storm clouds overhead, and the worry that passed from face to face of the people of what would one day be named Yehudah (and a thousand other things besides). But — though he wouldn’t admit it, not even in private, not even to himself — what he remembered most clearly of all was Crawley’s face, its sharp features laden with a concern he wouldn’t admit to. 

He thought of a troubled young man he’d met not so long ago, wandering the Eastern wastes alone, carrying a mark across his youthful face and a fury in his eyes. Crawley’s eyes hadn’t been furious. They hadn’t been cold. They’d been hard to read, certainly, but framed with an idle smile as they squinted against the pale sunshine. Had he pricked that mark into his borrowed human form himself, the Former Steward of the Eastern Gate had wondered, had he raised a clawed hand from the ashes of his Fall and traced those delicate coils into his face? Or had he been given his mark as well? To carry with him until the end of days? He hadn’t found the courage to ask.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚ *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Somehow, very much against what one would have assumed was possible or encouraged by divine reason, the angel Aziraphale and the demon Crawley would meet a great many times after the Flood. After enough meetings the angel Aziraphale didn’t have to worry about staring. Because what would very much be considered staring at — or even leering, studying, surveying, getting lost in — Crawley’s face when they were standing conspiratorially shoulder to shoulder, would very much be considered maintaining polite and attentive eye contact were they to be, say, seated on opposite sides of a table set for two with all the contemporary trappings of a decadent lunch.

Just after one of these chance meetings, when fate had seen fit once again to bring the two together, something rather curious occurred.

The pair were just leaving a café in the 13th _arrondissements_ where Aziraphale had eaten a selection of crêpes that any human, even amid _la Terreur_ , would have described as _heavenly_ (because, of course, they would have known nothing of Heaven, and so nothing of what it lacked, which was anything even remotely resembling those Earthly, licentious, resplendent, stuffed crêpes) and had gotten very nearly his fill of staring — beaming, ogling, peering — at Crowley’s (because that’s what he was going by these days) bespectacled face. They were dressed as a gentleman and an executioner, and had as of yet avoided detection. Terror, after all, was the order of the day, and it had been a miracle to find a crêpery that was open at all, let alone well stocked with a bustling kitchen and available seating.

Aziraphale placed his hands gently on his companions’ shoulders and pressed his lips chastely to either side of his impish face. When his kiss alighted on his left cheek Crowley grumbled, but when Aziraphale’s lips brushed over his right the demon froze. He shuddered, and his hands shot out to grab at the startled angel’s elbows and push their bodies apart.

“What in _heaven_ was that?” Crowley sputtered, an ashy blush rising in his cheeks.

“Ah,” said Aziraphale, delighted that though Crowley had pushed himself away, their hands remained resting on each other’s arms, their bodies still pressed together at the hip, “that was something the humans have managed to invent amid all this terror of yours. It’s called _la bise_.”

“It’s ridiculous,” Crowley slurred, his hold on Aziraphale steadfast, “and I told you this isn’t one of mine.”

“Well that certainly won’t be engraved on your accolades” said Aziraphale cheerfully, “and I _am_ sorry dear, I was only trying to fit in.”

They had parted ways quickly after that, Crowley grumbling something about now that you mention it I really should be off to polish my commemorative plaque, and the angel Aziraphale was completely unable to stop his mouth from curling into a smile which, had any human caught sight of it on that beautiful spring afternoon, they would have certainly described as wicked (because, of course, they would have known nothing of Archangels, of which Aziraphale, Former Steward of the Eastern Gate, was one, and so nothing of what they lacked, which was any ounce of wickedness at all, or any ounce of its derivatives: impishness, wile, or mischief).

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚ *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Aziraphale’s pleasant memory of that springtime afternoon in Paris was brought to mind a handful of times over the next few centuries. Mostly when Crowley mentioned lunch. Specifically when Crowley mentioned buying lunch, which the angel always delighted in.

One summer evening in Soho, when an invitation to lunch had stretched into a we-might-as-well-stay-for-dinner, the demon Crowley was walking the angel Aziraphale home. Or else the angel Aziraphale was accompanying the demon Crowley to his home. The details hadn’t been ironed out and it wouldn’t do to be presumptuous. 

They walked side by side down a series of narrow alleyways, avoiding the main thoroughfares to maintain the privacy of their conversation. Crowley was sharing a Rabelaisian tale to which Aziraphale was only half listening. What had caught his eye, peaking out from beneath Crowley’s unkempt mop of red hair, shining by turn in the buttery yellow light of the street lamps and the silvery grey cast of the moon, was the mark beside Crowley’s right ear. It, very much like the face it was etched into, had remained unchanged across the ages, and Aziraphale had found himself distracted by it through many a bawdy recollection.

As the familiar silhouette of A.Z. Fell and Co. began to loom in the distance, it quickly became time for the companions to part. Aziraphale invited Crowley to come in and join him for a night cap but the demon declined, citing important business early the next morning. With a polite nod to acknowledge that he accepted the lie, Aziraphale placed his hand on Crowley’s shoulder to bid him goodnight. Striking before Crowley could turn his face to meet his mouth, Aziraphale placed a fond and lingering kiss on the mark by Crowley’s right ear. His nose pressed against his companion’s cheek as his lips found their quarry, and he felt the demon’s body go stiff under his touch. His skin was rough, like pressing your lips to a half burned manuscript, and the angel could feel the snake burning at his mouth, its every curve and coil striking angrily at his skin like a hellfire brand. Crowley’s borrowed human form rattled and his arms shot up to push him away.

“What in _all creation_ are you playing at, angel?” Crowley sputtered, hissing like an overstimulated house cat.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, darling,” said Aziraphale evenly, with a smile that couldn’t possibly, not in this life or the next, pass for apologetic, “I was only saying goodnight.”

“Honestly, angel,” Crowley said broodily, rubbing his hand over the defiled mark in irritation, “the ideas you have rattling around in that funny little head of yours…”

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚ *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Some decades past that kiss goodnight, once its memory had been smoothed over by a thousand others, the demon Crowley did _not_ decline the angel Aziraphale’s invitation for a night cap, and the two found themselves at A.Z. Fell and Co Bookseller’s three sheets to a favorable wind.

They were laughing, although nothing outside of their brandy glasses had been all that funny. Crowley lay sprawled across Aziraphale’s dowdy brown leather chesterfield, a tangle of limbs and sharp smiles. Just as the angel had opened his mouth to say that you know, it’s the oddest thing, but I can’t actually remember what you just said to me that was so funny, his companion straightened up, and said something decidedly more interesting.

“Oh go on then, Azeyruffle,” said the demon Crowley, rising from the couch like a tangle of dry branches in the wasteland breeze, stumbling over the angel’s name with his ungainly, drunken mouth, “go on and finish it then.”

“Oh? Finish what, Crowley?” asked Aziraphale from behind the armchair whose shabbily upholstered backrest was bearing the whole of his weight. The brandy glass in his hand was empty.

“Oh,” scoffed Crowley, with a dismissive wave of his hands that sent his whole body teetering to the left as he closed the distance between them, “oh you know.” 

“I’m rather afraid I don’t,” said Aziraphale honestly.

“Oh come on, come oooon,” Crowley groaned, tossing his own empty brandy glass over his shoulder and whisking it away into thin air before it could shatter against the floor, “come on, you know. You know.”

“Oh you’re gonna make me say it,” he moaned, looking into the angel’s face and seeing that he, in his terribly frustrating and maddeningly earnest way, did not, in fact, know, “you’re gonna make me- fine. Okay, fine, the kiss. You can finish it off, now.”

Crowley had climbed onto his knees into the chair that Aziraphale was standing behind so their forearms were braced together across its backrest. The angel’s eyebrows arched from merely bemused to downright beffudled.

“Oh, you know, come on, the kiss. The stupid kiss you’re been trying to plant on me for a millennium. It’s grown tiresome at this point and I’ve had _just_ enough brandy to allow it, so, go on,” Crowley cleared his throat and tossed back his hair, which he’d grown long to match the laissez-faire attitude towards men-about-towns’ grooming this decade had taken on, “Get it done and over with since you want to so badly. I know you won’t ever ask.”

The angel Aziraphale’s features shifted across his face in a subtle, illuminating way that his friend could recognize, blissfully, as him understanding exactly what he meant. Thank the Dark Lord for that.

“Oh, alright, Crowley,” Aziraphale said pertly, straightening his finely pressed lapels. Rising on his tip toes and leaning forward over the armchair between them, he brought his face to Crowley’s and pressed a chaste kiss across his gently parted lips. The demon kissed him back, but unhappily.

“Although,” said Aziraphale demurely, pulling away and peering from his lowered blonde lashes, “it isn’t like we haven’t done that before. Why, I can recall… ‘planting’ did you say?”

The angel paused long enough to savor Crowley’s positively seething expression, “Yes, I can recall ‘planting’ a few… well it must certainly be a few _thousand_ by now-“

“That’s not what I meant,” Crowley spat.

“Oh?” Aziraphale teased.

“You know it’s not.”

“Oh, do I?”

“Oh, come on,” Crowley whined, gripping the edges of the armchair’s backrest as if he were about to rattle it to pieces, “Come on you know it’s— you’re not gonna make m— you’re gonna make me— oh I might have known you would, I — “

Crowley hung his head and dropped his shoulders, “…please.”

And it was just then that Archangel Aziraphale, Former Steward of the Eastern Gate of Eden, reached the limit of his exceptionally small capacity for cruelty.

“Oh, alright, Crowley,” he said, all the more gently than he had a moment ago, “you’ll forgive me the sport.”

He leaned over the armchair again, Crowley sinking back on his haunches so the angel didn’t have to rise onto the balls of his feet. Aziraphale brought their face together and raised a hand to tuck Crowley’s hair behind his right ear. He ran a knuckle along the coiling black mark and felt him shiver.

“Just here, then?” he asked softly.

“Just there,” said Crowley, his snake eyes lowered to Aziraphale’s shoulder.

“Won’t it hurt?”

“Stupid questions are beneath you, angel.”

Still smiling, Aziraphale brought his lips to the right side of Crowley’s face, and with a final steadying breath, brought them to their mark. 

Crowley hissed, grabbing onto Aziraphale’s arms to steady himself. His skin was crackling parchment, the snake a live ember. Parting his lips, still pressed to Crowley’s cheek, felt like raking them across a live wire. Gently, as if moving with caution and grace could spare them the worst of it, Aziraphale flattened his tongue to lick against Crowley’s mark. The demon yowled but bore the brunt of it, and Aziraphael moved his mouth down to the edge of his jaw, his pale lashes fluttering over Crowley’s warm face in a trail of butterfly kisses. He twisted his head and nuzzled at the tender lobe of Crowley’s ear with his nose. When he kissed it, he could feel a line of pinprick scars against his freshly burnt lips, reminders of his temporary humanity that the demon didn’t have to keep but chose to anyway. Deny it though he might, the old Serpent was every bit as sentimental as his paramour. Aziraphale felt Crowley’s arms wrap around his middle and press his belly into that damnable backrest. He placed a final languid kiss over the snake on Crowley’s face. It felt like closing his mouth around a curling iron.

When he withdrew his lips they were kissed raw, and Crowley’s serpentine eyes were dewey. Their breaths came hot and ragged, their human skins pushed past their occult and ethereal limits. Aziraphale pushed his nose against Crowley’s, raising his hands to knit his fingers through his hair and cup the occiput of his skull as if it were a chalice. He felt him sigh and lean into his touch, and for a moment the backrest was no longer between them. Neither were the two plates of bone and sheaths of skin that knit together their issued bodies. 

“Just like that, Crowley?”

“Just like that, angel.”


End file.
